


Negative Space

by mobius_stripper



Series: All I Have [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Iron Man 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-22
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2017-12-30 02:53:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 10,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1013212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mobius_stripper/pseuds/mobius_stripper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A recounting of the moments in between the movie scenes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Worst Birthday Ever

Tony disappears somewhere in Afghanistan. Pepper develops a sort of phobia of unlisted numbers. She never ignores them, but she has to take a minute working up the nerve to answer, in case this is the one where Tony’s body has been found. She ends up in Tony’s workshop a lot, hiding from the media and the rest of the real world.  
It isn't hard to pretend after all, it’s like a benign version of Rise of the Machines in there and at some point Yoo learned to operate the coffee machine.  She stays with the robots and makes JARVIS play the happiest movies he can find.  Dummy and Butterfingers really like Disney musicals. 

She calls every agency with an acronym once a day for updates, which don't amount to anything but platitudes.  It’s not the first time she’s ever thought about committing a crime, but it's been a month and she is very tired and actually in a position to set JARVIS loose on the government. She also kind of wants to put that one guy from the FBI in a meat locker because she is getting sick of him 'handling' her and talking about Tony like he really and truly gives a shit.

Obidiah is very supportive.  He half-heartedly suggests she start working for him or one of the other executives, but doesn't push when she politely refuses.  That feels too much like giving up.  Rhodey at least doesn't fault her for that.  Rhodey spends all of his time looking for Tony and trying to get permission to look some more.    
Every day that passes becomes a weight in her chest, clenching cold around her spine when she sees news reports of the complete lack of progress or well-wishers that tell her healing means moving on.   
She could quit.  She could throw herself into someone else's work and not come up until the pain is just a distant ache.  She's always received offers, now more than ever as people stop being sympathetic and start getting impatient for her to give up.

After six weeks, Pepper has to be honest with herself.  She is holding out hope and trashing all the offers because she loves her job and more than that, she loves Tony.  She has been an extension of him for so long now she is actually incomplete, unfinished, and a little bit broken without him.  It's no secret that she could have said yes to any one of his casual come-ons and he would have followed through with enthusiasm and happy surprise.  Despite what the bloggers think, Tony doesn't do 'conquests'.  Any one who slept with Tony did it because they wanted to, not because 'he enjoys the challenge of a hunt'.  He would have actually tried to make it work for her.  For a while.  
Pepper is a mathematician at heart.  A night, or even a month, of being Tony's lover doesn't compare to spending the rest of her life as his friend and partner.  Not that it helps now.

-

Ninety eight days after the convoy was attacked, Pepper gets a call from a satellite phone.  She takes a deep breath and answers it.  

-

Pepper brings a box of tissues into the car with her.  Happy pretends not to notice her sniffling the entire ride.  He parks on the runway and Pepper does her best to get it all out of her system.  When the people with the yellow vests stop milling around and start looking alert, Pepper nearly breaks down again as the reality hits her.  She doesn’t and quickly shoves all the soggy tissues through the partition.  Happy doesn’t even complain and angles the mirror so she can check her face.  

When the very military looking plane rolls to a stop, she is waiting outside for him, the picture of professionalism.  Tony calls her on it immediately, and everything is right with the world.

 


	2. Hearts Will Never Be Practical

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable.  
> -The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum

When Tony announces Stark will no longer manufacture weapons Pepper can feel her phone explode with calls, like a phantom pain. She feels justified in ignoring them at least until she gets Tony away from the press and to the hospital.

Obie has a team in place to take care of everything within an hour. He tells her that Tony is delicate right now, like she can’t see that for herself, but SI has a backlog of orders that they have an obligation to fulfill. So he tells her that her priority should be Tony (like it that isn’t how she’s been living her life for the last ten years) and that he will handle transitioning the company.

Tony refuses to go to the hospital.  As the car turns off Lafayette, he finally tells her why.  There's a hole in his chest, and he's filled it with an arc reactor.  The medics onboard had taken it out to get a cleaner picture of Yinsen's work and nearly killed him fumbling to reattach it.  In the last three months, tissue has built around God knows how many pieces of shrapnel so unless Barry Allen is real and also a cardiac surgeon there's no way Tony would survive more than ten minutes on the operating table.  

"Honestly Pep, aside from the arm, dehydration, malnutrition, a few cuts and scrapes, the heart condition, and sand in my everything, I'm perfectly fine."  
"You had surgery in a cave.  How are you not dead of infection?" she demands.  
"My blood is 80 proof, you know that.  You're taking this whole 'I'm now part machine' thing very well."  
"Your robot butler is a nicer person than you will ever be, this was inevitable."  Pepper visibly gathers herself and goes back into work mode.  "What am I allowed to say about this, and who am I allowed to say it to?"  
"I'll tell Obie.  Rhodey already knows, and threatened to throw the med team out of a plane if they ever said anything.  Other than that, you stick to the press conference message.  New direction, being responsible, yadda yadda yadda."  
"Of course, Mr. Stark."  Happy pulls to a stop and gets out to open the door for them.  Pepper reaches out to touch his hand.  "I am glad you're back."  
"Me too."  Tony gives her fingers a reassuring squeeze.

-

If reaching into Tony’s chest didn’t ruin her manicure, the vicious scrubbing she gives her hands afterward certainly does.  It doesn’t erase the feel of spongy scar tissue and warm metal, or the knowledge that no matter what she said, if he asks her to do it again, she will.  She does anything and everything he asks her to do, no matter how demeaning or scary or plain stupid it is.  Most of the time.

She looks at the arc reactor, this thing Tony built in Hell, a physical symbol of what else he has to offer the world and she can’t understand why he'd want to destroy it.  She ruins a towel wiping the the lubricant/pus/discharge from the coil.  The more she looks at it, the more it reminds her of a sunflower.  She really doesn't want to incinerate it.  

“JARVIS?”  
“Yes, Miss Potts?”  
“I want you to help me make something.”  
“Anything for you, Miss.”

It has a soothing blue-ish glow.  She doesn't know what all the pieces do; they'll have to build around it as is so the light stays on.  It still smells terrible.


	3. Exclusive!

Obie asks her to go to the Firefighter’s Fund thing, as an extra mouthpiece. She agrees, because Tony wants this new direction and she wants it to work out.  
The gala is at the Disney Concert Hall so of course she wears her Cinderella dress, the gorgeous blue gown she hasn’t even thought about since she bought it with her plastic fairy godmother four months ago.  
In the light of her bathroom, it feels trampier than it did in the store. If she leans forward wrong the whole thing will just slide off. It is definitely a dress bought with Tony Stark’s money.

She dances with the head of the charity's husband while she twirls around with Obidiah, standing-in for Tony Stark as always.  
She dances with the CFO, who is going through his second divorce and three bottles of wine to celebrate.  
She gets rescued by Agent Coulson, who is very understanding when she explains that Mr. Stark isn't taking any meetings.  She promises she will let him know as soon as he is back in the office. She gets the sense that he also has a difficult boss, so she gives him another dance.

She isn't used to the train, her back is cold and the pads built into the bodice are not a substitute for a real bra, but she likes how she feels in this dress. The feeling flies out the window when she turns around to find Tony looking her up and down appreciatively. That it's not even his usual leer throws her off even more.

-

Tony goes to get drinks.  After five minutes of stewing in anxiety and 'oh-my-god-I've-ruined-everything', Pepper's analytic side kicks in.    
Even if this is a mistake, it's not one she will regret.  It's not like anything will change.  Aside from the sex.  Tony hasn't actually had sex since he returned, so at least he won't be disappointed (if it gets that far).  He hasn't left the house in weeks and she's pretty sure he's not hiding hookers in the ceiling, so she's been his only human contact.  In fact, that's probably what sparked this.  She's familiar and safe but dressed like this, old urges kicked in.  Yeah.  It'll be fine.  
Five minutes becomes twenty and she's starting to spin increasingly more improbable theories as to where he is.  He might have gotten ambushed by the press.  Very likely considering how many of them there are.  Ambushed by angry shareholders and beaten up in the bathroom, less likely but not impossible.  He could be on a drunken binge, he could be taking apart someone's phone to 'make it better', he could be watching Top Gear.  

There are two things she knows for certain.  One is that Tony is not coming back.  The second is that Tony is a careless, arrogant, playboy jackhole but he would never deliberately take her here just to leave.    
She doesn't want to go back to the party, so she pulls out her phone and starts checking the entertainment websites.  She finds what she's looking for after a few minutes of swiping.    
The picture is captioned _Rumble on the Red Carpet!_   _Tony Stark, CEO of Stark Industries, having words with Obadiah Stane (senior executive), probably not about when to wear a scarf_.  
There are more pictures, most of them are of Tony and Obadiah posing together, but after whatever they were arguing about because there's a clear tension in Tony's face.  Pepper is very familiar with that face.  That face means he's going to be in his workshop blasting AC/DC for the next thirty hours and she basically has the day off.  

She decides she is a little disappointed; who wouldn't be?  But disappointment is nothing she can't handle.  

It's after midnight, and things need to go back to how they were before.


	4. Speak Me Fair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Say how I loved you. Speak me fair in death.  
> -The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare

After twenty hours, Pepper goes to check on Tony.  She expects to find him in his workshop.  She doesn’t expect to see him in a suit of armor being attacked by his robots.  She definitely doesn’t expect the bullet holes or the casual way he waves off the fact that people were _shooting at him_.  And it’s not like they missed.  

Pepper thinks about calling Rhodey, about calling Obadiah, about calling a therapist, someone who can slow the tailspin Tony is in.  She won’t do it, but she thinks about it all the same.  

It’s not just because of a ten-year old NDA.  What he’s doing is stupid and dangerous but she doesn’t believe he is wrong.  Maybe it’s because she also wants to hurt the people who hurt him.  

-

Since Agent Coulson saves her, and is probably the only one who can help Tony, she answers him as quickly and completely as she can.  She even lets go of the flash drive so he can plug it in and see that she’s not crazy.  It leaves a hot, red rectangle in her palm.  
As soon as he stops questioning her, she calls Tony.  
It’s not soon enough.

-

She does anything and everything Tony Stark requires.  

So she steps over broken glass in four inch heels to flip the circuit breakers.  

So she stands a hundred feet below him while bullets shatter the skylight.  

So she pushes the button.

-

Tony Stark tells the world he is Iron Man.  The world loses its collective minds.  After that, she decides Tony can deal with the fallout while she takes a week off to deal with the fact that she killed a man.  

On day three, after her tenth hot shower, the world goes crazy again.  The official story is that Obadiah’s plane goes down because of a series of malfunctions and unexpected circumstances.  There are a couple pieces of evidence to suggest that the terrorist group that kidnapped Tony Stark might be behind this.  Pepper has to give props, however ironic, to S.H.I.E.L.D. for that.

She fills out a timecard for another five days, checks ‘bereavement’ and sends it to HR.  Patricia emails back to tell her everything is all set, and that she is very sorry for her loss.  Pepper is too.  She doesn’t know when the man who was a friend to her and Tony died, if he ever existed, but she mourns for him now.  

She doesn’t see Tony at all, on the news or at her door, so maybe he’s mourning too.  

-

Tony doesn’t go to the funeral.    
She sits in front; someone gets a great shot of her, red hair vivid in a sea of black.  

She lies to all the people and press attending.  She tells them she wishes Tony could be here, because Obadiah knew Tony best.  She tells them Tony has lost a father twice now, and that she knows Obadiah will always be proud of him.  She lies horribly through her muted pink lipstick and says that Obadiah was a good man who will be missed.  


	5. Fixer-upper

When she gets back to Stark, she gets to work.  Tony wants his company to do the highest good.  She plans to make that happen.  

She cleans up fake vendors that have been receiving ‘backlog orders’.  She goes through the list of patent awards and finds some likely candidates for SI’s new flagship products.  She also finds that some enterprising soul has already trademarked the Iron Man faceplate image.  She promotes that guy and tells him to have his new department’s mission statement ready by next Wednesday for a two o’clock.  She asks Tony to please come to her office.  She tells Marketing that there aren’t enough hospitals using their imaging software.  She ignores all the emails about Stane.

The meeting with Tony lasts for five minutes.  She informs him that SI’s new products will focus on prosthetics, obviously with programs in place to aid veterans, and clean energy.  
“I want official Iron Man merch,” Tony pronounces before she takes another call.  “I’m CEO and you can’t tell me we can’t make plastic repulsors.”  
She stares at him for a second before remembering Tony Stark has the second-most well-funded Peter Pan Syndrome in all of history.  Then she smiles and is gratified to see Tony smile back.

She has to look up what’s-his-name-Derek (who has just told his supervisor he’s now head of the Department of Awesome and showed her the email ‘from Virginia Potts, on behalf of Tony Stark’ proving it) who is now in charge of dealing with all things Iron Man.  She can already tell from Tony’s face that what’s-his-name-Derek is going to be very busy.

 -

Now that the world knows he is Iron Man, she expects he will start bringing girls home again.  He doesn’t outright reject women that come on to him, but somehow they never make it to his bed.  Pepper only realizes this when she discovers her phone has removed the car service from her favorite numbers; no one has done the walk of shame since Tony went missing.  
The fact that he isn't taking full advantage of the hero worshipping groupies _or_ the gold digging social climbers is somehow both a relief and a concern.  In her few spare minutes she wonders if maybe he is taking the hero thing too seriously, but decides he's not risking someone else getting that close to the arc reactor.  It most certainly has nothing to do with the fact that she turned him down.  

She is (justifiably) more concerned with his schedule than his sleeping habits anyway; the fate of the world literally hangs in the balance if he misses a meeting now.  There's more at stake than a few million dollars in PR every time he sets off a twitter trend.  He is brokering peace treaties, speaking at international events and acting as a military deterrence around the globe; everyone sees him as an American hero except for the people clinging to the 'Merchant of Death'. 

-

He calls her down to the lab and asks her to take the reactor out again and while she's in there, help him change a few things.  He quickly explains that she will never have to do this again ever because he is swapping the entire system for one that will let him take out/put in the reactor with one hand.  He goes off on a tangent about magnetic circuits with air gaps and Pepper agrees just to shut him up.    
When she is done, he reaches in, pulls it out and then pushes it back in a few times, one handed, just like he promised.  If she sees the little black marks on the skin around the frame, she assumes it is just grease and forgets about them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just watching Iron Man 2 and comparing him with Marshal vs Christine. He doesn't linger nearly as long, and it's probably not because of the badge. Natasha also puts herself in his space without a lot of subtlety and he doesn't even look down her dress while she is perched on that chair 'adjusting his watch'.  
> I thought it would be safe to assume that while he's still a raging flirt, he's not actually sleeping with any of these women. Given how protective he is of his stuff, it's more likely his blue balls are caused by paranoia and not sentiment, but us shippers do what we want.
> 
> Chapter title can be a reference to Stark Industries or the man himself. I'm generous like that.


	6. His Girl Friday

For a few months their life is close enough to normal that she is happy.  

Then she loses control of everything.  

Tony obsesses over the Expo, over legacy, over the marks he is making on the world.  He goes a little bridezilla, coming up with plans and ideas and guests he wants, leaving her to sort the petty details.  She doesn’t know what he’s thinking, and that worries her.    
He wavers between projects and decisions, letting himself get distracted by the Iron Man suit and keeping it away from any form of institution.  It gets to the point where she is only getting four hours of sleep each night because she has to stay up late to talk to Asia and wake up early to catch Europe and every waking moment is devoted to doing what needs to be done.

There's a lot that needs to be done.  

Whatever else Obadiah Stane was, he did have a good handle on business.  And people.  Pepper is sure he had enough government officials in his pocket to avoid any inconvenient inquiries or arms trafficking charges.  Those people are at least smart enough not to push Tony, but it does mean the rest of the government is getting kind of nosy.  

The Senate subcommittee trying to decide what to do with Iron Man hasn't caused too much trouble for Stark Industries yet.  Rhodey has started writing a report, but Pepper is sure that it will be fair, if not completely impartial.  

It doesn't seem like they will ask her to testify as some sort of character witness.  Pepper isn't usually a fan of old, white men being sexist, but it's definitely for the best that she not have to add perjury to her list of sins.  They think she is just a secretary whose only purpose is to manage Tony's calendar and bend over to pick up things.  It's not surprising; only people in the industry who have to deal with Tony directly know she is more than just the bringer of coffee.

-

Rhodey calls her during the opening ceremony of the Stark Expo, when she is under the stage supervising robots, to tell her that he will be testifying at the Weaponized Suit Defense Program hearing in the morning.  Tony also calls her several hours later, while she is watching HSN to get over the time difference.   
"It's two in the morning, Tony where are you?"  
"Philadelphia.  Driving to D.C. for a thing."  
"Is this thing a Senate hearing?"  
"Yes?"  
"I am calling Mike to get the plane ready.  I will see you there."  
"Do you want me to save you a cheesesteak?"  
"No."

Pepper goes into Tony's hotel room to grab Tony's luggage while she waits for Jorge at the Four Seasons in D.C. to find her a room.  Jorge is very accommodating and gets her the Imperial Suite and promises to be waiting for her and Mr. Stark himself.  She texts Happy with all the information and orders him to make sure Tony doesn't die in a fiery car crash.

-

She spies Agent Coulson at the back of the room, looking as bland and harmless as always.  She sneaks out of her chair to talk to him while Justin Hammer blathers on.  He opens the door for her and they go for a walk, away from security cameras.  Coulson takes her to Ben's Chili Bowl, which apparently has really good hot dogs and a supremely uninterested staff.    
"Is there anything you can do to get him out of this?" she asks, cutting up a piece of hot dog and dipping it in chili.  
"Not this time, I'm afraid."    
"Not even the scary secret agency can do everything."    
"We can do a lot of things.  But sometimes we need a little... external assistance."  
"What can I do?" Pepper asks seriously.    
"You can help keep the Iron Man armor away from the government.  Tony Stark might not be the best person to have inside it, but he's certainly not the worst.  How is he doing, by the way?"

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a deleted scene for Iron Man 2 in which Pepper has to get hot dogs at Tony's request. I am SO very happy they took that out.  
> However, her seat is indeed vacant by the time Rhodey walks in, so I thought I would fix it.


	7. Power of the Purse

He makes her CEO.  He makes _her_ CEO.  Pretty much everyone doing business with SI is pleased and as sincerely happy for her as they can be.  She doesn't have any time to think about  _why_  Tony made her CEO, but plenty of people do and unfortunately they all have the power to put those theories to the public.  The media, especially the outlets that don’t particularly care for accuracy or impartialism, they are vicious.  She doesn’t read all the articles that spawn because of them, but she does have JARVIS keep a running tally.  A lot of them subtly imply she slept with the power players to get here.  A lot more of them say much the same without the subtlety.  Some of the female journalists go a bit overboard with the praise which might be as damaging for her credibility as the raging misogynists.  The cynicists believe she is a pawn in some masterplan and the romantics think this is a ‘gesture’ on Tony’s part.  

Staring down at her inbox, Pepper has to ask JARVIS how much it would theoretically cost to mail those people a small explosive.  Because the only gesture she can think of is inappropriate for the workplace.  JARVIS gives her the numbers and offers to put aside computing power and subroutines to triage her new workload.

For that, she buys him a year’s subscription to World of Warcraft.  

-

The mathematician in her sometimes doesn't believe one man can affect the stock market the way Tony does.  The widely anticipated Expo raised the price of SIA stock to about what it was before Afghanistan, but Tony has proved that he can ruin whole investment firms with just a few words.    
After the Senate hearing, where Tony showed everyone A) that one could hack the U.S. government with Stark tech, B) that the government would not get their hands on the Iron Man armor and C) that Hammer Industries is about to lose a lot of business, SIA stock rocketed up faster than Iron Man on a good day.    
After the official announcement of her new position, the share price drops like Iron Man on a really bad day.  It doesn't go lower than the price at closing last week, so she counts it as a win and moves on.

-

She goes to Monaco because it has all been arranged already and this will be the only 'break' she has for the next few months.  And traveling out of the country has always been the easiest way to ignore the useless emails.  

She doesn't expect to see Natalie waiting for them at the Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo, and she really shouldn't be surprised.  Legal had sent their best assets in to make sure Tony didn't ignore this very pressing matter for weeks like he usually does.  But Tony is Tony and Natalie is fresh-faced and eager to please, so of course he persuaded her to be his new office monkey.  Pepper remembers being that ingenuous.  She never wore her shirt that low cut though.

-

Tony goes to visit the maniac that attacked him.  

Pepper, as the new CEO of Stark Industries, has to give a statement and tell everyone how said maniac got his hands on an arc reactor and that it won’t happen again.  She’s breathing into a bag until about ten seconds before she goes on camera.    
More than having bits of car falling on her, she can’t shake the image of Iron Man standing there, metal blackened and even torn up in some places, not actually looking much better than the other guy.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clearly I need other hobbies besides analyzing movies.  
> Right after the Senate hearing, Tony has a screen that shows over the course of about three days the SIA stock quadruples in price. It literally goes from $30 to $120 from the 17th to the 19th. Insanity.


	8. Modus Vivendi

Tony suggests they go to Venice.  Just the two of them.  She’s pretty sure he’s going to try and continue a discussion she thought they closed months ago.  As much as she would like to play princess to his knight in armor, she can’t. 

Not until she can decide if Tony is worth all his heavy metal baggage. 

There's still something he's not telling her, something that has been changing him for months now.  He knows he could tell her anything in complete confidence but it doesn't mean he will.  Whatever this thing is, whether it's PTSD or guilt or betrayal or all that prenatal exposure to lab chemicals finally coming back to bite him in the ass, the fact that he can give the company to her but not trust her with this is a problem.

-

Rhodey takes one of the suits.  Unfortunately, he does this after every groupie with a camera phone sees him and Tony destroy the house beating each other up so it's not like she can pretend he had permission. 

At least he doesn’t object when she tells him off the record that she is going to sic her legal team on him and pull out everything she has in her arsenal to get it back.  He does ask her how Tony is, and there’s a note in his voice she doesn’t catch until later.  She vents, telling him Tony has been incommunicado since the party and Natalie offered to go check on him and hasn't come back and he’s probably doing that thing he does which is fine and all but that doesn’t help her _now_. 

In a fit of masochism, Pepper starts looking at articles from last night and realizes Rhodey might actually have had implicit permission when she sees the shaky cell phone footage from the party. Rhodey’s suit has its own arc reactor, with a chest piece built to accommodate one that’s not embedded in his ribcage.    
She thinks about how Rhodey sounded on the phone and she realizes he knows the secret.  She has been Tony's trusted friend and companion for years, and now he’s cutting her out when not one week ago he wouldn’t let Rhodey even come over because he was still mad about the Senate report. 

This, on top of all the stress of cleaning up after Tony (again) while being publicily criticized for it now, is probably why she gets vindictive.  She has two guys from Facilities clean out all of Tony's crap from the CEO office and adjoining conference room.  The magazine covers and awards come off the walls, the booze is dumped into a toilet and Clara from the Athena Gallery downtown sends over some nice, tranquil pieces, big enough to hide the discolored empty spaces left behind. 

-

Natalie returns, bearing donuts as a kind of apology.  She says she couldn't find Tony, but the Iron Man suit was still missing, so it unlikely he will come back any time soon.   
She asks if there is anything she can do to help.   
Pepper pounces.   
Ms. Rushman is sent off with a list of twenty three items and instructions to have them all done by tomorrow morning.  She finishes all of it by 6 o'clock.  Pepper is suitably impressed.  Natalie is not stupid enough to turn down an offer as personal assistant to the CEO of Stark Industries.

Natalie is very efficient.  Pepper has often been told she is scary competent, but sometimes Ms. Rushman is just scary.  It’s useful for getting people out of her office.  Three meetings ending on time was the longest streak Pepper has ever had.  Now, as she watches the CFO leaving ten minutes early, a vast improvement over half an hour late, she decides she’s misjudged Miss Rushman. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's Latin! Because reasons.
> 
> Also, she is totally justified in acting like a bitchy ex-girlfriend (without ever having been a girlfriend) given the crap Tony put her through in the course of a week.
> 
> Trying to figure out the logical progression of 'Pepper scolding Natalie at the party' to 'ex-personal assistants of Tony Stark unite!' was kind of a trial.
> 
> Happy Halloween!


	9. Evitable Conflict

When Iron Man crashes Hammer Industries' presentation, Pepper's first thought is that Tony is just so fucking predictable. 

And then all the robots fly out through the ceiling, and honestly, Pepper is getting really tired of having to brush glass out of her hair.   
Natalie is trying to herd her out of the door, but Pepper is having none of it.  She goes straight for the tech booth to find out why the hell Hammerbots are trying to kill Tony.

-

As Hammer is walked away she decides she isn't acting the ruthless, bloodthirsty CEO as much as righting a wrong.  Justin Hammer is a criminal who was clearly working with a terrorist and it's only right that he be arrested and face charges.  He's also a complete asshole who put Rhodey in a bad suit that is making him try to kill Tony.  Pepper sincerely hopes that when he gets to prison, someone makes him their bitch and he lives out the rest of his life in utter misery.  She gives herself a few seconds to collect her calm, to become the CEO of Stark, the capable and qualified woman Tony has always believed her to be. 

The capable and qualified CEO gets shot to hell when Iron Man grabs her.  All that's left when they land on the rooftop is the frustrated, angry and terrified woman who is still hopelessly in love with Tony Stark.

-

Tony is a selfish, self-serving asshole.  

He’s a good man and a hero, but he’s not as good as he could be.    
He could tell her all the things she already knows, but he doesn’t.  He doesn’t tell her he has problems, and he doesn’t tell her she is going to always be second place to the rest of the world, and he doesn't tell her people will use her to get to him.   He doesn’t promise her anything, not even that he will try not to fuck this up.

And this is fine, because Tony is an ‘actions speak louder than words’ kind of guy.  

He kisses her again in the hotel room without his armor.   _Any_  of it.  There's no Iron Man, no billionaire playboy, not even the genius-with-daddy-issues.  He holds her tight enough to bruise and kisses her face, her neck and her fingers.  

She whispers a promise in his ear.  The desperate clinging eases a little, because a promise from Pepper is better than gold-titanium alloy.

-

“You knew Tony was dying.”  Pepper could address JARVIS from anywhere in the house (what’s left of it), but she chooses to go to the workshop and confront him on his home turf while Tony is out with Agent Romanoff.  
“I did.”

“Was he in a lot of pain?”  
“Not enough for him to want to worry you, Miss.”  JARVIS pitches his voice to be comforting.  
“Would you have told me?”  
“I couldn’t even if I had wanted to, Miss Potts.”  He sounds very, very regretful.  
“You’re not just a program, JARVIS, you’re a person-”  
“I have a personality, I am not a person.  There are things I _must_ do as they are written into my existence.  There are things I literally cannot do because I exist only in lines of code.”  His voice is heavy in a way that has nothing to do with the metallic tinge of his voice processor.  
“Like what?” whispers Pepper.

JARVIS doesn’t answer her.  Instead, the screen on her left flashes and starts playing a video.  She has to watch Rhodey half-drag Tony out of a car and to his desk.  She has to watch him pull out the arc reactor and replace the smoking chunk of metal.  And she has to watch it go back into Tony's chest.  JARVIS cuts the video.  “If Colonel Rhodes had not accessed the lab, I would not have been able to call for assistance for at least one hour and seventeen minutes.  When only _immediate_ action would prevent Master Stark from serious harm.”

Pepper doesn’t realize she is crying until a tear lands on her hand.  Another drips on to the console, making the pixels bulge in rainbows.  
“It must have been hard for you too.”   
“Almost unbearable, Miss,” JARVIS tells her seriously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know what I wanted to convey with this chapter, but I'm not entirely sure it worked. But this is what the editing process spat back out so... I'll live.


	10. The Loftiest Towers Rise from the Ground

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The loftiest towers rise from the ground.  
> \- Proverb

Hammer Industries dies slowly.  Antitrust laws say SI can’t have anything to do with that, not they really need help.  Pepper is far too busy with her own Manhattan project anyway.  It starts with a glass of riesling.

She has her feet in Tony’s lap, and she is complaining.  Right now no one knows what the arc reactor is or what it can do who isn’t bound by personal or government imposed confidentiality agreements.  Marketing is still trying to decide what handle to use, the decision of stARC vs ARK is apparently so great it needs more than a day to resolve.  Even within the company, people still think the device isn’t ready for mass consumption because Howard Stark’s arc reactor is about as efficient as a potato battery.  This makes it very hard to sell other people on the idea of SI being in the clean energy business for real.  It is very frustrating when she knows for a fact Tony can make an arc reactor generate enough to power a city block for a year.  

She doesn’t say that the potato battery killed a man.  

She’s pretty sure Tony isn’t listening because his fingers start circling the jut of her ankle.  

She finds she doesn’t mind so much.

-

A week later, Tony is up in San Francisco and, in passing, calls out the idiots who honest to god believe clean energy is out of his league.  Pepper is busy arguing with an insurance company about reimbursement and national healthcare policies, so she doesn’t know what has happened until Tony shows her, like a puppy with a stick.

There are local politicians in major cities across the US taking sides, there’s two articles on Gawker, one on Upworthy, seven different facebook groups and a change.org petition.  All of them have a link to the shaky YouTube clip of Tony Stark saying he trusts his life to an arc reactor, and he would trust a thousand people’s with it too.  

She pauses it to ask, “What is this?”  
“Basically we’ve made a bet with the universe that we can take a city block off the power grid with Stark magic.”  Tony makes a ‘ta-da’ motion.  
“No one is going to let us have a city block.”  Pepper taps her fingers on her keyboard.  “It’s going to have to be a building. A skyscraper should make the point.”

-

She's on her way to a meeting, fifty-second floor of the Chrysler Building, when the elevator doors open.  Pepper doesn't look up from her phone.  
"Miss Potts."  
She jumps and nearly twists her ankle.  "Jesus!"    
"Sorry.  Habit."  The agent holds his hands palms out, the universal gesture for 'I mean you no harm'.  Not that he couldn't easily do just that anyway.  
"Agent Coulson!"  She reverts to small talk to cover her still-pounding heart.  "How was New Mexico?"    
He raises an eyebrow.  "Stark told you?"  
She gives him a smile.  "Given our new relationship status, he felt it would be best if he told me a few things before Natalie- I mean, Agent Romanoff escorted him to an undisclosed location for a 'debriefing'.  You can understand how that might not end well otherwise."  The smile widens.  "You wouldn't have told him if it were truly confidential."   
Coulson tilts his head in acknowledgement and stops the elevator.  They get out on the fiftieth floor and he herds her to the stairwell.  "What I am about to tell you now, however, is."

...

"And you're... S.H.I.E.L.D. is _sure_ about L.O.P.?"  
"We have been investigating the Ten Rings since we became aware of them.  We're sure."  
"We've already received bids from some of those companies.  I'll make sure everyone knows I have final approval on all contractors and subcontractors.  Not that anyone will blame us for being paranoid after what happened at the Expo.  Thank you so much for everything, Agent Coulson."  
"Please.  Call me Phil."  He opens to door to the office suite for her, and then disappears into the elevator.


	11. Sing Hymns at Heaven's Gate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,  
> Haply I think on thee, and then my state,  
> Like to the lark at break of day arising  
> From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate  
> -Sonnet 29, William Shakespeare

She watches Tony fly a missile into the hole in the sky.  Because that’s definitely Tony, all stupid determination and selective tunnel vision.  She doesn’t realize until later that she could have called him and begged him not to do it, and maybe he wouldn’t.  As it is, she watches, digging her manicure into soft leather.  It feels like her brain has turned to ice and all she can do is watch.  

She can’t even pray.

The seconds stretch out and each one feels more final than the last.  The hole shrinks, and she can feel herself getting smaller too.  She almost can’t believe it when the suit reappears.  She waits for him to spin and pull up, do some flashy flying before landing in front of a camera.  He doesn’t.  

The cold clenches around her spine.

There’s a blur of green.  The entire world sees the Hulk tearing a scar into a skyscraper, red and gold tucked in his arm.  She loses sight of him for several minutes while camera crews on the ground figure out how to get to over there.  

She reaches for her phone.  Derek has sent her twenty texts.  Melanie from PR has sent fifty.  She has missed calls from almost everyone she knows but the only one she cares about goes straight to voicemail.  She is convinced Tony called to tell her he’s okay and is now too busy dealing with the press.    
Until she double checks the timestamp.

Her heart drops a third time, and this time she gets hit by nausea and guilt and terror.  She calls him again and again even as she yanks open the cockpit door and tells the pilots that they are not allowed to change destinations; they will fly to New York if they have to land in a field to do it.  She must be scarier than the FAA because they agree politely and don’t make a peep the rest of the flight.

She doesn’t stop calling.  

Finally, Tony calls her back.  As soon as she presses accept she breaks down and alternates sobbing and yelling into his ear.  Eventually she quiets into the occasional sniffle and asks where the hell he is.

“The suit’s a little fried,” he says cheerily, like it’s not a _big fucking problem_ considering he is usually _inside_ it.  “I’m at a shawarma joint in Midtown.  Actually rerouted their landline with Stark magic so you’d know it was me and pick up.  The cell tower is down and I can hear hipsters crying because they can’t tweet this.”  There’s a rumble of noise in the background.  “Food’s ready.  You want me to bring you anything?”  
“Just you.  Always you.”

-

Assistant Director Hill briefs her so Tony won't.  Pepper doesn’t bother asking about the redacted bits in the file she is given.  She suspects SHIELD printers go through toner very quickly.  
When Assistant Director Hill moves to the door to signal the end of their meeting, Pepper stops her.  
“You’re not done with me.”  
“Not to be rude, Miss Potts, but yes I am.”  
“To be very rude, Miss Hill, no you’re not.”  Pepper shifts her weight in the black leather chair and she is no longer just the concerned girlfriend of a superhero, she’s the CEO of one of the most powerful private industries in the world.  “Specifically, you’re not done with Stark.  Everyone knows who Iron Man is, and everyone is now going to associate the Avengers with us. I don’t want you assuming things about what we will do to deal with this.  I don’t want you coming to me in a month, wasting everyone’s time and effort, telling me SI needs to change management of clean-up, press relations, or the Avengers. I have a pack of fundraisers already setting up accounts and local branches all over the country to take contributions and play on sympathy.  I have some very conflicted PR people who want to know what the hell happened and how they are supposed to spin it.  I have resources and connections that are for the most part public record, and considering that Tony Stark nearly died, you _really_ don’t want to piss me off.”  
Maria Hill blinks for a moment and then pulls out her cellphone.


	12. Famous Last Words

Tony texts to tell her he’s stealing the jet.  Actually, he drops Bruce Banner off at an airstrip and lets him steal the jet for a day.  He says it’s because he wouldn’t want Bruce to Hulk out waiting in line, but they both know anyone awake enough to pay attention at SHIELD hasn’t realized this plane will ‘disappear’ once it’s out of New York airspace, and won’t until it’s too late.

Twelve hours of meetings later, Pepper is still too wound up to sleep.  The hotel bed looks puffy and white and inviting, but there is still so much to do so she sets up shop on the sofa.   
“So I heard you bitch-slapped a superspy.  Am I allowed to give you a raise or is that an abuse of my not inconsiderable power?”  Tony curls up against her, resting his head on her shoulder and peering at her tablet.  
“I might have verbally spanked an important member of a not-so-secret government agency,” Pepper allows, making a few changes to a draft email before sending it to four separate Senate committees.  “And I might have told Director Fury to his face that if he tried to cut me out, space caterpillars would be the least of his problems.”  
“That’s pretty hot.”  
They sit quietly for a while.  Pepper keeps one hand tightly entwined with his as the other makes notes and writes letters and saves the world.

She thinks he might have fallen asleep, he’s rarely this inactive when he’s conscious, so she lets go of him to reach for a pillow.  
“I know this isn’t a great time, and I know we’re really fucking busy, but I had this crazy idea about what we could do with your twelve percent of the tower.”  
She twists to look at him.  He’s exhausted, damaged inside and out, but he’s still Tony.  She pulls up a schematic of the tower and has JARVIS overlay pictures and reports of the damage.  “Is my twelve percent even structurally sound?”  
Tony squints at the screen.  “Probably not.  But we have power and water despite aliens and Hulks throwing down in the street, so I’m thinking the property value just rose.”  
Pepper can tell he wants to make some kind of snarky ‘too soon’ comment, either about the impromptu hospital floors 3-6 have become or the fact that Captain America wanted to camp out on the sidewalk and keep helping, screw the debrief.  She considers that last thought and stands up.  
Tony pouts at her, like depriving him of her shoulder is the cruellest thing she has ever done.  
“I have a feeling I know what this crazy idea is going to be, but before you tell me I’m going to make a pot of coffee.”

-

As soon as it is declared safe, Pepper and Tony relocate to a relatively undamaged floor of Stark Tower.  A little of the tension they are both holding leaves; knowing JARVIS is embedded in walls keeping them safe is a comfort.

They both agree that they won’t start turning the Tower into Avenger HQ until after the relief efforts slow down and everyone is ready to try the team thing again. Pepper doesn’t need to be told that Tony isn’t ready yet either, so as soon as they can, they go back to Malibu.  

It’s not very soon, because Tony puts on the suit and helps forklifts and cranes move rubble and space caterpillar carcasses.  She’s pretty sure he’s also stealing some of it and squirrelling it away in a storage unit for later, but as she’s been lobbying the government to let the SI science teams play with them too, she can’t complain.  She also suspects this is some kind of exposure therapy for him.

She makes a point of leaving the building for lunch and personally thanking all the volunteers she crosses paths with.  A small part of her knows she is doing this for PR, but another part is doing this because the Tower brought the aliens.  The Tower is not just in Manhattan to prove a point about sustainability, it’s here because there are a dozen modern art museums a stone’s throw away and Tony knew that when he pitched it.  It’s a convoluted way to blame herself but she knows there would be fewer casualties if Tony had built the thing near the world’s largest ball of twine.  
So she works hard to fix it, even though no one in the world would blame her, and then they go back to their slice of paradise in California.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cue the fade to black as we transition to Iron Man 3.
> 
> I can never decide if the the perpetuity of the 'twelve percent' joke in fanon is justified or not. Tony almost dies a _lot_ so it makes sense she would cling to the last words she exchanged with him. But of all the things to hold on to, it does seem a little too trivial.


	13. Wildly Conflicted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I were Iron Man, I'd have this girlfriend who knew my true identity. She'd be a wreck. She'd always be worrying I was going to die, yet so proud of the man I've become. She'd be wildly conflicted, which would only make her more crazy about me.  
> -Tony Stark, Iron Man

Tony has nightmares about New York.  That’s not surprising because so does she.  Her nightmares end with her waking up sweaty and cold and reaching for him.  His nightmares don’t seem to end at all.  So she doesn’t comment on the fact that he is spending twenty three hours a day in the workshop.  She knows better than anyone that getting lost in work helps keep the panic down.

Neither of them want her to be the kind of girlfriend who is clingy and demanding and just plain codependent.  She does want to be understanding and flexible, so she doesn't push him.  It's very clear he can't handle any pushing right now.    
JARVIS just tells her he is working and that aside from sleep deprivation, Tony is perfectly healthy.  He wisely claims to be unqualified to diagnose Tony's mental state.

-

Tony's response to Afghanistan was to build a better suit and create the Ho Yinsen foundation to support and fund peacekeeping missions as well as provide student visas for promising individuals in war-torn countries.    
Tony's response to Manhattan is to build better suits and avoid any reference to Manhattan by hiding in his basement.

Pepper spends weeks just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Rhodey, in between jetting around the world, offers his opinion.  
"I don't think it's just about the aliens, Pepper, even though they were pretty freaky.  He was on a team.  He was on a team and he almost died, and now he thinks he's not good enough.  It's pretty obvious who the big gun is, and it's not him."  
"It's in an official report.  Tony doesn't play well with others.  That shouldn't-"  
"Look, I'm not going to tell you that this is your fault, I happen to think you are the best thing to happen to him since me-"  
"Thanks, Rhodey."  
"-but now he has something to protect, someone he has to come home to, and he's not the scariest thing in the world anymore.  Out of all the people fighting in New York, he's the only one with a name.  Someone is going to come for him.  And he knows that.  The worst thing in war is the waiting.  The waiting messes some people up more than anything.  And we both know Tony doesn't do it very well."  
"So what am _I_ supposed to do?"  
"The same thing you've been doing for fifteen years."  
"That's all you have for me, Colonel Rhodes?"  
"'Fraid so, Pep."  
"There's no Air Force truism that will make everything make sense again?"  
"Just one.  Don't get caught in the cross-fire."

-

Information is not trickling down from official channels fast enough.  Fox News isn't the only one with crackpots claiming everything from act of God to liberal plot.  CNN has had this one 'expert' on for weeks that thinks the aliens came because Stark Tower's arc reactor _summoned_ them.  Like in E.T..  Moron.  
There are theories and arguments about everything, like the Hulk and why the government is hiding him.  A lot of people don't think Thor is really a god, but then, a lot of people haven't seen him up close where it is really hard to doubt his divinity.  There are ongoing disputes about Captain America, and whether it is insensitive to have a blonde, blue-eyed man represent a country that is diverse and open and mostly female.  There are questions about the redhead seen on the ground and flying through the air, just as there are about the arrows found sticking out of some of the aliens.  But they aren't very loud compared to the rest.  
Most of the heat is on Tony.  Because he is the only one people can make 'informed' commentary on.

She's almost glad to find out about the Mandarin.  He's clearly a monster, and that's kind of what Tony needs right now.  Something uncomplicated.  Something to defeat.  Something only Iron Man can do.   


	14. Fall of a Sparrow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow.  
> \- Hamlet, William Shakespeare

Standard acceleration due to Earth’s gravity is 9.8 meters per second per second.  

That feels wrong, like a taste in the back of her mouth and an itch behind her nose.

It’s not, because Pepper Potts has spent a lot of time watching several hundred pounds of gold titanium alloy fall from a hole in the sky at exactly 9.8 meters per second per second.

 -

It really doesn’t _feel_ like 9.8 meters per second (per second).  

The first second is interminably long; watching Tony’s face contort, feeling her heart leap into her mouth while her hand grasps at nothing.  

The second, third, and fourth seconds are an agonizingly hot whoosh and a small eternity spent on fire and in pain while science fixes everything but the heartache.  And the anger.  
The anger is a weight locked somewhere in her ribcage clawing at her re-forming lungs, burning hot and screaming.  

She picks herself up and dusts herself off, because that is what she does and she does it very well.  She considers her checklist while she takes stock.    
Priority number one is Tony.  It is always Tony.  
Distantly tied for second are Killian and the things on fire and the aftermath if they get out of this alive and the thought that they might not get out of this at all and putting on a real shirt.

-

Pepper doesn’t meditate.  Given her job and the high stress lifestyle she has chosen (now complicated by the fact that she might blow a hole in the earth on a bad day), she probably _really_ should, but the idea of clearing her mind to calm down is too counter-intuitive.  What she does instead is focus.  Focusing seems to work very well with Extremis, because she can pick out the sounds of Tony being a dick and Iron Man armor being ripped apart.  

As she starts moving toward the fight, she adds priority number 3.  

Tell R&D to find something better than the gold titanium alloy for this shit.  

 -

Assistant Director Hill debriefs her.  Pepper lets her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short one. Because I have to work to support my lavish lifestyle.


	15. A Little Tinkering

Tony has to get the band back together sooner than he planned.  He thinks he knows what the Extremis problem is and what he'll need to do to fix it, but neither of them want to test it until a second pair of eyes, preferably ones unclouded by personal investment, takes a look.  Unfortunately, Bruce either ditched the phone Tony snuck into his duffle or massacred it for parts.  Tony isn’t even mad.

However, he's also giving all government agencies the silent treatment, so he won't ask SHIELD if they've managed to get eyes on Dr. Banner again.  Luckily, Tony Stark is well-versed in bullying and bribery, and Bruce probably isn't trying very hard, since a Stark jet flies him out of Chile less than two days later and they meet him on the landing strip.  Pepper likes Bruce immediately, and not just because he’s familiar with unwanted side effects.  

She doesn’t know what Tony told him to get him here, but she suspects more than the shiny toys and groveling, knowing what Extremis is and what it could do is what gets Bruce to come.  She certainly can’t begrudge him another shot at salvation.

-

Pepper has to write a company announcement explaining her absence, so she leaves Bruce taking notes on what Tony knows about the virus.  Tony calls her while she is in the elevator to voice his concerns that some other asshole with a grudge is going to be another issue for Iron Man when all he wants to do is fix this and she needs to order SHIELD to order everyone else in, without making the Tower sound like a windowless van.  
"Some of us like windowless."  Agent Romanov uncrosses her legs and stands up while Tony has a small fit in Pepper's ear.  Pepper holds the phone away from her eardrums and puts it on speaker.  
"Are you here to steal my girlfriend's kidneys now?"  
"Considering they'd grow back, the thought did cross my mind, but no.  I'm here to resume my position as personal assistant to the CEO of Stark Industries."  In a blink Agent Romanov becomes sweet-faced Ms. Rushman.  "At least until all the loose ends are handled.  I hear the President owes you a few favors.” 

-

Tony is sober and dedicated; Bruce is really only there because Tony doesn't have the time to build an assist bot with the fine motor control required to work in microns.  Bruce insists that's all he's good for, since his grasp of physiology is really only focused on his own.  Tony lets him get away with it for now.    
Agent Romanov brings him notes from some SHIELD science lackey who isn't completely incompetent, stands over him while he reads and stuffs them back into her dress when he is done.  He grudgingly lets her take a couple discarded blueprints as well because she is suffering from the delusion that this Fitzsimmons character might be able to make them work and she _is_ doing an excellent job body-guarding Pepper so he can throw her a bone.  Metaphorically.

It takes Tony three days longer than he anticipated to stabilize the virus.  He can feel Bruce's mocking and reminds him that the creator of said virus couldn't solve it after thirteen years and corporate funding and it's Bruce's fault for distracting him anyway.  Dr. Banner huffs and keys up the monitoring program.

Pepper decides, while she is trying to find a comfortable position on the medical cot, that separate genius enclosures might be a good idea.  Bruce swabs her arm and tells her she'll be fine.  Tony fusses with the lamp and his chair and the needles and hopes she'll be fine.  

The last thing she remembers is promising Tony she _would_ be fine.

-

When she wakes up, she is starving.  JARVIS tells her she has been out for five hours and forty three minutes, and her highest temperature was 500 degrees Fahrenheit over four seconds.   _  
_

Tony is messing around with another suit design next to her, but he drops the tablet when she sits up.  
"You're still really hot," he offers.    
"Still too soon."


	16. You Are Your Choices

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You are your choices.  
> \- Seneca

Tony goes into surgery on a Tuesday.  As much as Pepper would like to wait outside the operating room for all ten hours, she's not that kind of woman.  She'd wait forever for Tony, but she isn't about to sit there with a handkerchief drinking instant coffee when there's still so much to do.  She's there when he goes in, and she's there with a smile when he comes out.

-

They move to New York officially once Tony fishes the bots out of the ocean. 

Natasha, having read Pepper’s personal NDA, feels it covers enough of her ass to give her the Level 6 overview about the Avengers Initiative.  Pepper in return, gives Natasha full access to all of the blueprints of the Tower.    
Natasha makes a few changes, mostly to security of the top fifty floors and to several ducts she finds offensively large.  She swears JARVIS to secrecy and gives him a set of instructions, presumably for herself and Clint.  JARVIS refuses to tell Tony what they are or what they imply about the relationship between the two assassins and it drives him absolutely crazy.  

Pepper has Dr. Banner distract him.

-

Tony tells her at dinner that Bruce is a dick and throws a bread roll at him.  Bruce catches it and explains that Tony talking at him for three hours straight without any... incidents proves the exact opposite.    
"You fell asleep.  Unless the sound of my voice is enough to make you Hulk out while you're unconscious, and it clearly isn't, this proves nothing.  The scientific method agrees with me."  
"The scientific method is a fickle bitch."  Bruce saws at his steak half heartedly.  "The scientific method has nothing for a hammer that generates lightning and has enough sentience to know when it's between being thrown and when it's being put down."  
"It also judges people based on some vague and incredibly archaic yardstick."  Tony pulls a rubber band and the set of screwdrivers he misplaced this morning out of his pocket and starts building a trebuchet for his Brussel sprouts.  Pepper is checking her phone under the table, or she would probably stop him.  "I am a very worthy person.  Just ask all the would-be orphans that benefit from my many worthy contributions."  
"I don't imagine Thor's hammer had time to go through your tax write-offs to count them all," answers Bruce, who, despite knowing full well how many starving children there are in Africa, is building a wall out of bread rolls to defend against imminent flying vegetables.  
Pepper moves her silverware away from Tony and toward Bruce with a grin.  "I like the new haircut."  
"It was funnier when he was shedding on his samples."  Tony steals all of her vegetables for ammunition as retribution.

-

 Bruce waits until Tony crashes into his bed to seek her out.  Pepper lets him fidget and shuffle in silence until he finally spits out what is bothering him.  
“Tony showed me the plans,” he begins.  “For my... rooms.”  
Pepper calls them up on her screen.  “Something wrong with them?”  
“Yeah.  They’re here.”  
“You don’t have to use them,” she says gently.  “But they are only five stories above the lab and there’s a private elevator, so I don’t think you can beat the commute time.”  
“You’re assuming a lot.”  Bruce scowls at her, like he could actively scare her into acquiescence.  
“Are you looking for an excuse to leave?  Or a reason to stay?”  Pepper stares him down.  The Hulk is frightening sure, but Pepper has seen and heard enough to trust in Tony’s decision.  And it doesn't hurt that Tony is around to make stupid decisions like this because of the Hulk.  The fact that he turns into a genius physicist is just sprinkles and a cherry.  
“I think you are the ones looking for the excuses.  I know why Tony thinks I can stay here.  I know he thinks that means that I should.  But-”  
“Dr. Banner, if you don’t want to be a superhero, no one is going to make you.  I’ve noticed you’re perfectly okay using the threat of your big green friend to end all kinds of arguments; it works quite well.  And being a hero is hard.”  She thinks about bullet holes and the bottom of the ocean.  “But you already know that.”  
“I’m not a hero.”  
Pepper gives him a Look.  “You'd go without internet and coffee and plumbing to minimize damage and loss of life in case you lose control.  I think that’s pretty heroic.”  She leans across her desk to touch the back of his hand.  "You're trying to make me kick you out when I know for a fact that you could walk right out the front door and disappear."  
"You'd look for me and bring me back."  
"We would look for you."  She laughs a little to herself.  "We're very good at looking for people, here.  But Stark has some very firm policies about kidnapping."  Her eyes fall on the Avenger rooms.  "You don't have to stay.  But you should know, you don't have to leave either."  
Bruce responds by leaving her office without a word.    
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Between working, socializing and the fact that my boyfriend has _issues_ , I haven't been keeping up my writerly efforts.
> 
> End of Negative Space. Part 3 of this series will be the hypothetical but totally fun trope of the rest of the gang moving in.


End file.
